My friend Paola has a way with children: she can pacify howling babies with one look, and stop a toddler’s tantrum with one word. It seemed natural, then, that when looking for work, she should turn to childcare. She was interviewed by an agency in London last week that provides cover for nursery school teachers. It asked Paola to pay for her own CRB check (£49) and promised her £7.50 to £8.50 an hour. (A cleaning lady in the same area makes £10 an hour.)

Full-time work at a nursery is famously badly paid, her interviewer explained when Paola queried the low salary. What they couldn’t explain was why the nursery school where Paola would work temporarily could charge £15,000 a year per toddler. Paola has a six-year-old daughter. She’s done the sums, and they don’t add up: if she works outside of school hours she’ll have to pay a childminder £10 an hour to pick up her daughter from school and babysit her until Paola finishes work.

Childcare, once an informal arrangement among relatives, neighbours and friends, is now a multimillion pound industry. Few parents today live near their own mother and father, which means they cannot rely on the best babysitters of all – Granny and Grandpa. As for friends and neighbours, few parents trust any old grown-up with their children: Jimmy Savile tendencies could lurk behind the friendly smile.

Parents want the best for their little ones, but may often think the worst of those available to care for them. As long as this mindset persists, nurseries that offer “professionals” whom they have stamped with their seal of approval will do well. But we have lost something in the process: the informal, trusting childminding where everyone feels secure.

• If the childminder is the most undervalued professional, a chef is the most overrated. Not a day goes by without a celebrity cook unleashing venom against the competition, restaurant critics, or, as when Nigella recently ranted against French cooking, an entire national cuisine. The latest lippy cook is Andrea Brambilla, the chef at the three Michelin star Giannino restaurant in Milan. Last week Brambilla launched a poisonous attack on a foodie blogger who dared complain about his restaurant’s new off-shoot in Dubai.

I understand that his pride was piqued; but I find such self-importance indigestible. Today’s chefs regard their opinions and judgments as important. I long for the days of Elizabeth David, when cooks were read and not heard.

• If revenge is a dish best served cold, the meal being doled out by some ex-wives deserves a Michelin star. They are tipping off the taxman about their former spouses’ tax evasion.

Some need an incentive to do so: the women demand cash payments in return for supplying details of secret offshore bank accounts or undeclared income. Others, though, are calling Revenue and Customs’ confidential hotline simply out of spite.

The authorities are happy, as they can recover millions of pounds in unpaid tax. The ex-wives feel vindicated: now the man who let them down cannot afford to keep his new woman in grand style.

As for the men, they are thinking twice about dumping the missus, lest, when she goes out the door, the taxman comes a-knocking.